Non-Music/Recording Computer Issues...

[Gregg Juke]

Hi All,

This is a non-music related computer question. It _may_ be an Internet/browser issue, it may _not_ be... I don't know (may be a "registry error?"). PLEASE HELP if you can. The _long_ sad story appears below (if you don't have the stomach for it, better bail-out now):

We got into some trouble with some viruses, malware, etc., etc. from my kids and their (now banned) gaming sites and such. I also have some memory/storage issues (which I'll attempt to deal with by adding an external drive and migrating everything important). Anyway, I'm paying for top-speed Internet, and both my computer and connection speed itself were intolerably slow. We also had a little bugger that was hi-jacking certain internet site destinations and taking us to random unwanted commercial sales or video sites, and also we kept "winning prizes" for being the "10,000,000th" whatever... The usual malware caca.
I had my computer expert friend check things out, and he said "Everything's fine; no viruses." Which I already _knew_ wasn't true. Then, I ran a full Norton about five times, but after each scan, cleaning, and quarantining, the problems persisted.

So I did a little research (too little, apparently), and downloaded CC Registry Cleaner, SuperAntiSpyware, and Spybot, and ran each program and things seemed to speed-up (for a bit). Then ran Norton a few more times, but it kept coming-up with "35" issues that needed attention. So I'd run the program, assuming it would do it's fixing thing, but it never did. Computer started to slow down again, Internet speed slowed, and NOW, I'm getting "nginx 404 error" messages everytime I want to go to Google, YouTube, or _any_ search engine (for instance, I can go to Yahoo for my mail, but not do a Yahoo search).

The anti-spyware stuff seemed to be taking a lot of memory (according to Norton), so I removed all three programs. Then, I tried another one, which was supposed to fix the "404" problem, but it was a "free" download that wanted to charge me $60 once it diagnosed a bunch of problems. So I deleted that program as well (without running the "fix").

I now have a pretty fast computer, with pretty decently fast Internet, but I CANNOT get to YouTube or apparently ANY search engine.

To date, I have tried:

1) All Norton scans and fixes
2) Adding and running CCRegistry Cleaner, AntiSpyware, and Spybot
3) Removing all three above
4) A complete browser cache deletion (three times)
5) Messing with a bunch of Internet settings, trying to figure-out what the heck was up
6) Restoring all default browser settings (after more problems started, like not being able to sign into this site or a few others)
7) This goes back to before #2 above, but I also tried a bunch of suggested fixes for the initial "iexplore.exe" issues that we were having
8 ) We also tried reinstalling Internet Explorer 8
9) Back when I was using FireFox was when the trouble started, so we switched back to IE, with the results documented above (sorry this is all out of chronological order, but this has been going on for a few months now; hard to remember exactly what/how this happened, but I think I've tried _everything_ that _I_ can do... I'm no expert, of course, and have severe limitations/knowledge gaps when it comes to this area).

I'm not a computer guy, I'm not a Windows guy (started my computing years ago on a Mac), and I'm fishing in the dark.

Can anybody tell me how to restore some computing/surfing sanity to this machine? (Dell Dimensions 4100 running Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8 ). School is starting in September, and my kids need full-functionality (not to mention my wife and myself). I'd rather not do a complete re-install/re-boot of everything on this dad-gum computer. Help me Obi Wan Kenobis, youse r my only hope...

THANKS for any shoves in the right direction,

GJ

PS-- If this is a no-no in this forum, I'll trust that the moderator will remove it, accept my pre-fabricated "sorry," and not be too mad at me... I'm getting kind of desperate...

[T-rex]

Well, this probably won't help much but I have fixed several computers for friends and relatives by simply googling the error messages that I have and following the steps that people more knowledgeable than myself have been kind enough to provide. They walk you through which registry items you need to delete or change in order to fix the issue. Usually there is some type of error message that will pop up? Those 35 issues that keep popping up would be a place to start. If you mess up your registry too bad, your computer will no longer boot, which leads to the complete re-install.

Honestly, if there are a ton of issues or you have never done this kind of thing, a complete re-install is really not a bad thing depending on how bad the theft protection is on the programs you use. Dongles like Cubase make it really easy, but some software may not be so forgiving. If you have that covered and have backed up everything you want to keep, a complete reboot gets you back to square one with just a few hours invested. Re-install, re-connect to the web, re-download all the necessary drivers and updates and re-install any programs you use. Bam, brand new computer.

Good luck!

[kslight]

I know you don't want to, but at this stage a total reformat and reintall is less time consuming and it will resolve the problems. It will make the computer run much faster because there won't be any bs left on it, not to mention no virii.

DO THAT, then download and install all available security updates from Microsoft, and download/install Microsoft Security Essentials (free and very good antivirus/antispyware program). Then setup user accounts, and lock your kids out of installing any programs, and TALK to them about their Internet activities.


As an alternative.... You can try doing a system restore back to a day when the computer functioned normally... Then do the above updates and install Microsoft Security Essentials (don't use the bogus programs you mentioned), and install Malware Bytes Spyware Removal Tool.


That MIGHT get you going, or you might be back in two weeks. Reformat and reinstall at that point.

[Gregg Juke]

Ah. Not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for the tough love and candor guys...

Off to re-booting land.

GJ

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi,

There two simple fixes for this :

Option A : Buy a new hard drive, which is larger than the one you have currently. Do a complelety clean installation of the system, and immediately afterwards protect it. Norton, as you can see, is worthless. Use a FIREWALL and set up a PROXY for surfing the internet, if you are going to use a PC. Even then, you will have to deal with malware. There is no way to be immune to it on a PC.

Option B : Buy a Mac, and never look back! Yes, this is more money, but trust me, in my house we have 4 laptops and one tower, and nope, we do not get the malware, viruses. No, Macs are not perfect machines that never break, but they are a LOT easier to run and maintain. I usually do a clean install of the system, including a system hard drive reformatting, about once every two years, to keep the drive working properly.

Cheers

[Gregg Juke]

Thanks Nick. Probably go with number 1 in the short term, and number 2 in the long. I love me some Mac, but unfortunately, it's an XP world out there...

GJ

[kinger]

Just another option, I always dual-boot my music machine with Ubuntu and use that if I need to do any surfing/internet related activity (or anything non-music related, for that matter). Much cheaper than buying a mac and just as virus-proof, if not more-so. It's very simple to do and you can allocate whatever amount of your hard drive you like to the partition.

Of course, you'll have to do the re-format first and get your windows partition stable.

And one more thing, before you do that, maybe try downloading a free root-kit virus scanner; it sounds like that may be the issue. Good luck!

[Snarl 12/8]

Do you have a restore point from before the shit hit the fan? Whenever my daughter comes down the stairs in total panic after borking her computer from a careless download I do the restore point magic and look like a genius. It literally puts your computers vital settings and installation back to the date the point was created without touching your data/files, etc.

[Gregg Juke]

Hey Karl,

It looks like I'm in too deep for that.

GJ

[vvv]

Sounds like you may have what is called a rootkit.

See here.

There's a thing called combofix what may help ...

Good luck!

[Snarl 12/8]

Sometimes a wipe/reinstall is actually the quickest/easiest/best thing to do. Hardly ever, but it does happen.

But learn your lesson. Backups, restore points, firewall and a condom are all absolutely required when surfing the intertubes. Delete the fuck out of Norton with extreme prejudice.

Do a little research about anti-virus software. Look around for one that people seem to complain less about than the others. It's like laptop reviews, you'll always find an extremely vocal minority bitching about even the best of them. People really like to vent after 5 years of work goes down the tubes.

This is not safe for work or many young children.

[kslight]

Hi,

There two simple fixes for this :

Option A : Buy a new hard drive, which is larger than the one you have currently. Do a complelety clean installation of the system, and immediately afterwards protect it. Norton, as you can see, is worthless. Use a FIREWALL and set up a PROXY for surfing the internet, if you are going to use a PC. Even then, you will have to deal with malware. There is no way to be immune to it on a PC.

Option B : Buy a Mac, and never look back! Yes, this is more money, but trust me, in my house we have 4 laptops and one tower, and nope, we do not get the malware, viruses. No, Macs are not perfect machines that never break, but they are a LOT easier to run and maintain. I usually do a clean install of the system, including a system hard drive reformatting, about once every two years, to keep the drive working properly.

Cheers[/quote

Yeah, this is more or less accurate. Bought my first Mac Pro 8 months ago, never looked back, and one of the reasons is because though I consider myself very computer savvy I DO NOT HAVE TIME to deal with all the bs that comes with owning a PC and hooking it up to the internet these days. I am comparatively "good" on the internet not downloading bogus/illegal software/etc and still its a constant struggle to not get tanked with malware and other bs.

[casey campbell]

firefox?

tools

options

advanced

network

settings

no proxy server



then:


start

run

type: cmd

type: netsh winsock reset


reboot machine

[Snarl 12/8]

Yeah, this is more or less accurate. Bought my first Mac Pro 8 months ago, never looked back, and one of the reasons is because though I consider myself very computer savvy I DO NOT HAVE TIME to deal with all the bs that comes with owning a PC and hooking it up to the internet these days. I am comparatively "good" on the internet not downloading bogus/illegal software/etc and still its a constant struggle to not get tanked with malware and other bs.

I really don't get this. I've been running PC's for 15 years. Started off on Macs. Ran both for a while. Now strictly PC and Linux, Macs have always given me grief. I've never, ever gotten a virus, worm, trojan, etc. on a PC.

(Knock on freakin' wood.)

But then again the computer has never "eaten my email" or "deleted my document by itself" either.

Running a mac to avoid viruses is like using a pseudonym on messageboards to avoid cyberstalkers. But that's a whole different thread, literally. There's lots of anecdotal evidence that Macs are "safer" but I think the true statistics are starting to show otherwise. There are people out there that want to take Apple and the Apple fanbois down a peg or two.

http://www.google.com/search?q=are+macs ... =firefox-a

[Snarl 12/8]

firefox?

tools

options

advanced

network

settings

no proxy server



then:


start

run

type: cmd

type: netsh winsock reset


reboot machine

You're saying that the malware has simply told their browser to use their proxy server so it can redirect them to malsites? Looks like a simple fix for that aspect of it. I'll have to remember that one.